1/8 A thread on a term used in #NEP2020 - #lokavidya or peoples' knowledge. It is mentioned in the context of vocational training. It is good to see the term make it into the final policy. But this should be the start of something much bigger.
2/8 As part of @vidyaashram98 (vidyaashram.org) we have been working on the radical political and economic potential of lokavidya for many years. E.g amazon.in/Lokavidya-Pers…
3/8 Our thesis is that radical, pro-people transformation of society is not possible without challenging knowledge hierarchies and restoring legitimacy to peoples' own knowledge systems.
4/8 The informal economy is a rich repository of lokavidya and workers routinely labeled "unskilled" due to lack of education are paradigmatic producers, teachers, and learners of this knowledge as I argue in this essay: yojana.gov.in/2014%20-X-%20O…
5/8 Lokavidya refers to open-ended knowledge in society that is produced in course of ordinary life, that forms a mainstay of thought and action for majority of people. It includes but goes far beyond technical skills to values, ethics, governance, vision of the good life etc.
6/8 What it means to be "educated" or "uneducated", caste-based knowledge, Eurocentrism, are all part of the debate as I show in this essay on three books - biography of JC Kumarappa, Ilaiah's Post-Hindu India and Sousa Santos' Epistemologies of the South caravanmagazine.in/reviews-essays…
7/8 It is not India, but Latin American societies such as Bolivia and Ecuador that have gone the farthest in recent years on trying to reimagine the good life (buen vivir) in non-Eurocentric terms. But we, in India, have rich traditions of our own to construct such visions.
8/8 Lastly, the rise of Hindutva in mainstream politics has made it all the more urgent to reimagine peoples' knowledge traditions as a way to a just and prosperous society. A point made by this article from over ten years ago: amitbasole.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/bhatta…
